


Additional Dimensions

by lodessa



Category: Angel: the Series, Dollhouse, Jossverse
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-03-24
Updated: 2009-03-24
Packaged: 2018-01-17 02:43:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,114
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1370983
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lodessa/pseuds/lodessa
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes Adelle DeWitt suspected that this dimension really wasn't any less hell-like than the one she'd grown up in</p>
            </blockquote>





	Additional Dimensions

The chaos outside of her office window was considerable. Sometimes Adelle DeWitt suspected that this dimension really wasn't any less hell-like than the one she'd grown up in. Of course, it could have been the nostalgia talking; maybe you just always have a soft spot for wherever you came from. In that case she'd always prefer there and her parents would always prefer here. Shame that they were there and she was here. Of course, dad could have been; he'd never signed a perpetuity clause, and it's not like he didn't know how to construct an inter-dimensional portal. Apparently he was on one of his impossibly noble and self sacrificing kicks though, or at least that's what her mother said. Whatever the reason, when Adelle had gotten promoted into this dimension, her father had not joined her. He'd never abandoned them while she was growing up either, so Adelle suspected it was not really a phase so much as who he was, and he apparently either really hated himself or really loved her mother. Maybe it was for the best that they were not here though. Adelle was starting to suspect that maybe the difference wasn't nostalgia but the Senior Partners' apocalypse at work. After all, wasn't the idea to make this place increasingly hellier?

Good old dad had sent his favorite watchdog along in his place, of course. It was not surprising, considering that the timeless god-king had been used as a nanny when she'd been younger, but somehow watching Illyria put on a human face was far more alarming than her usual strangeness. Adelle was starting to understand why it was that her father never let Illyria wear this skin back home. Although, how he got this primordial force allowed him to rule her was the far greater mystery. Maybe someday, if she got out of this whole thing with any free will and free time left, Adelle would do some research on the subject. But for now she was left with a god-king wearing a mask of timid fragility, she wore it so flawlessly that sometimes Adelle wondered if she was still in there. She was of course. Who else do you think could have thrown Alpha through a window when he'd been about to reach Adelle? That was the upside. Dominic asked her about her escape plan; she didn't need one. Nobody on this plane of existence could harm her. 

Of course, it was likely that Wolfram & Hart would discover that she was sabotaging their current presence in this dimension, before she had everything set up, and they would be out for blood. Illyria could probably take anything they pulled within the dimension, but it they decided to take it parallel there might be issues. Filial responsibility could really be a headache sometimes. Not that her mother knew what Adelle was up to, Lilah would have told her daughter to get everything she could out of this, to worry about her own freedom instead; her mother wasn't so sentimental. Adelle had heard whispers when she was young, whispers that said her mother had done everything in her power to keep from bringing Adelle into that hell dimension. So she'd asked her; she'd been maybe eight and Lilah had looked her daughter right in the eyes and told her it was true. She'd told her that she hadn't even thought you could get pregnant in a hell dimension, unless it was just fucking with you to break you with a miscarriage. She told her eight year old daughter a dozen reasons she'd tried to kill her in the womb, and not one of them was sentimental. Later, her father had found her crying and told her other reasons, reasons that were entirely sentimental and reassuring. This was her father's plan, and her own; Adelle was a competitive woman; she couldn't resist a challenge.

After the incident with the Beast and the fiasco with their attempted temptation of Angel, bedtime stories dad had told Adelle from infancy, Wolf, Ram, and Hart had decided that the legal system was sufficiently corrupted for their purposes and decided to find a new way to interface with this dimension. They had come up with The Dollhouses. Good old Wes had spent forever trying to find a weakness, despite his consort's mockery, and when his daughter had been reassigned to the London location the wheels had started turning in earnest. The year and a half it had taken Adelle to get promoted up to the head on the LA branch might have been too late for dear old mom and dad if the dimensions were being cruel; that was always a risk, but it was more likely that she had all the time in the world. She wouldn't know until she was finished here, one way or another.

Bringing a slayer into the mix had not been part of her father or the Senior Partners' plan; that was all Adelle. It was daring. It was risky. Illyria hadn't stopped her, so she felt somewhat vindicated. There had been complications; she'd never expected there not to be, but Dominic could always be replaced and Adelle was reasonably sure she had it under control. Besides, she couldn't wait to see the look on her parents' faces. Now the New Watchers Council owned her one as well, and she sort of thought she'd use that favor to make a statement for her father. He'd done the best he could, considering the circumstances. She was going to do better.

Adelle wanted to do better, to prove more. So she was the inside man. She knew more than any of them thought. Growing up in a hell dimension with a former-watcher turned demon hunter father and a mother who'd twisted the legal system into all kinds of interesting directions for the supernatural evil that was around in this dimension, well it taught a girl things. Adelle stepped away from her window and descended down to the Dollhouse, it was important to keep a close eye on things. Boyd's initiative could prove useful, but it could also bring everything down around her ears. So she needed to figure out how to manipulate him in order to maintain the advantage. Sometimes, when faced with these kind of questions, she asked herself what her mother would do. Sometimes, she wondered if this is what her life was like, before. Had her father been one of these unpredictable forces, something Lilah had worked to redirect in a direction to her liking? Had it worked? Catching a glance of herself in the mirrors, Adelle mused that her mother would love this outfit if she could see it.


End file.
